


how was i to know (i was far too much in love to see)

by serendipityinwords



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Best Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Jealousy, pining!clarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 03:18:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11569203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityinwords/pseuds/serendipityinwords
Summary: There’s a perfectly rational explanation as to why Clarke doesn’t like Bree and Bellamy has nothing to do with it. She’s mostly sure.





	how was i to know (i was far too much in love to see)

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly fluff and pining!Clarke. I love only ever writing, like, one kind of fanfiction!

Bree is not exactly hard to like. She’s smart, if a little lazy. Her jokes are inappropriate, but she’s charming enough to pull it off. In theory, she sounds like someone Clarke might actually like. But, there’s just something  _off_  about her. Clarke  _can’t_  like her. Not for a lack of trying, she’s looked at it from every angle. Clarke finds herself thinking about it a lot. It’s like staring at a painting that’s technically sound and still getting repulsed by it. It’s driving her insane.

But, Bree is Bellamy’s…  _something_. She should, at least, figure out what she doesn’t like about her. He’s her best friend and she’s gotten along with most of his hook-ups. Though, she has to admit, none of them have hung around him this long.

The point is, once she understands why she doesn’t get along with his... whatever she is to him (because there absolutely has to be a reason for it), she might be able to look Bellamy in the eye again without feeling like she’s doing something wrong and just barely getting away with it. 

Raven is as sympathetic as Clarke expects she would be when she tells her about it at brunch.

“You can’t be serious.” Raven looks utterly unimpressed but she can’t be exactly sure if it’s a reaction to what she said or if it’s just her default mood. “Oh, my god, you are unbelievable,” she mutters under her breath. Okay, so it’s her, then.

Clarke shifts uncomfortably. “What?”

“Clarke.” Raven stops herself abruptly, biting her bottom lip. “Never mind,” she says and chugs the rest of her mimosa, instead.

She doesn’t push, knows she won’t like what Raven has to say. Clarke considers her words, instead. “Do  _you_  like Bree?”

Raven makes a non-committal noise. “She’s fine.”

“Just fine?” Clarke asks and feels hope sparking in her chest. If Raven doesn’t like Bree either, there’s hope she isn’t over-reacting.  

“Clarke, you know that it’s hard for me to like people. I barely know her,” Raven tells her and, she knows she’s right. Raven doesn’t take easy to anyone, except for Luna, maybe. But,she was in love with Luna almost immediately, so that doesn’t count.

She thinks of Bree, for what seems like the millionth time, and tries to make sense of all this, but she draws a blank. Instead, she finds herself thinking of the time she’d seen Bellamy’s arm wrapped around Bree’s waist and her grinning up at him. Her stomach feels like lead.

Clarke pokes at her salad with her knife, her appetite gone. “But, you know why I don’t.” The answer is buzzing at the back of her head. Clarke has every intention of ignoring it until she absolutely has no choice.

“I’m not interfering.”

Clarke doesn’t laugh at that but it’s a close thing. Raven’s the most meddlesome person she knows. If she were to make a list of every single inappropriate comment someone has made about her love-life—or lack thereof—, Raven would make most of it.

But she doesn’t feel like following that train of thought. “You hacked into my laptop yesterday!” ****

“Okay, first,” she says, holding up a single finger, “guessing that your password is your middle name is not hacking— “

“Hey, that’s genius. No one knows my middle name which, conveniently, also means that witches can’t put curses on me!”

“— Second,” Raven continues, ignoring her, which, fair, “you kept going on and on about you haven’t installed any anti-virus software in your new laptop yet, and it was driving me insane.”

“I was getting to it,” Clarke protests in a tone that suggests she was not, in fact, getting to it.

“You needed it too with all the weird porn you watch.”

“For the last time, I was dating Sterling at the time and he was into some weird things!” Raven makes a face. “It was one time!”

“One time too many,” Raven mumbles.

Clarke smacks her shoulder with a discarded napkin and Raven jabs her in her ribcage.

“Next time, I’ll let you catch the virus.”

“Well, I like it better when you meddle.”

There’s an extended silence. Clarke’s not talking about the computer anymore and Raven is both smart and a good enough friend to pick up on it.

“Fine,” she relents, “you’re jealous.”

There it is. The most obvious explanation to her troubles. She knows that if she digs enough, she’ll find it’s true. And that, unfortunately, also makes it the most problematic explanation.

“He’s my best friend,” she reasons weakly, “We’re not a thing.”

“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive,” her friend retorts, not unkindly.

“Yeah but I don’t have feelings…” she trails off. She can’t say that. Even before this whole thing, she could never say that. They were Bellamy and Clarke. She realizes, with an ungentle tug of her stomach, that she had always thought that it was going to be them in the end. She swallows and it hurts.

Her expression must be truly pitiful because Raven backtracks. “He’s your best friend. Maybe, you just don’t want to share him.”

“Maybe.” She knows Raven is lying for her benefit. But, Clarke feels like she’s lying too.

 

* * *

 

**Millers and Boon**

Miller

Is bellamy dead???

No

What

Why are you texting me then

It’s 3 in the morning

I’m working I can’t tell the time

There aren’t any clocks in the hospital?

It’s how they keep us here

Wait why would I be the one telling you that bellamy’s dead

Idk you’re always together

And youre his emergency contact

It makes perfect sense to have a doctor as your emergency contact

Right.

Fuck off

But seriously

Bree

_(two attachments sent)_

She looks like me doesn’t she?

I guess I see it

But you also said bryan looks like bellamy

HE DOES

Ok Clarke whatever

Wait you woke me up for this??????

I mean you didn’t have to wake up for a text

I cannot stand you

Does this have anything to do with your feelings for him

…………..

Did you talk to raven

you think raven is the only person who thinks you’re in love with bellamy

jasper calls you guys mom and dad

yeah but we’re talking about real people

im going to bed Clarke

tell your boyfriend I said hi

im not relaying your existence to bryan

you made it too weird with the bellamy comment

YOU CANT HIDE FROM THE TRUTH NATHAN

_Millers and Boon is offline_

* * *

 

She feels bad when she invites her friends over for dinner the next day and it’s only half because she misses them. In truth, she needs a distraction. Clarke’s never been particularly good at feelings. And whenever she’s had them, they were short-lived, all-consuming and almost painful. But, with Bellamy, it’s— it’s all  _encompassing_. It’s soft and sweet and makes her feel like she’s doing something right. It’s a feeling in her chest that she carries with her everywhere she goes. She knows what she feels, and she’ll be fucked if she lets him go because she’s too afraid to be happy.

When Bellamy shoots her a messing telling her that he’s on his way, she finds that she isn’t actually that afraid anymore. It’s always nice seeing Bellamy, Clarke decides, when he pokes his head into her apartment without knocking. It’s nice to see him when she’s upset, and when she’s excited, it’s even nice when she’s on the brink of admitting that she’s in love with him. If there’s only thing she can be sure of, it’s that she’ll always  _want_  to see him. His smile is the one she’ll most easily recognize. She’d know him from miles away. He sets her at ease.

“Hey.” He wraps his arm around her shoulder as he enters the apartment and absent-mindedly presses a kiss to her temple.

“Oh,” she says.  _I love you_ , she thinks. “You’re early.”

“Nice to see you, too,” he replies, a teasing lilt to his voice.  _You have no idea_ , she thinks. She gravitates towards him, smile growing on its own accord.  _Not a fucking clue._  Bellamy smiles back with his whole body. His shoulders perk up and his eyes sparkles and her head feels like it’s clearing itself up, like the noise is leaking out. She’s starting to realize that he loves her too. In whatever way.

He drops onto the couch and she slots herself next to him, the way she always has. “I just didn’t realize you were going to be early.”

He shrugs. “I’m on time. Everyone else is just late.”

“You’ve been friends with us for years, you should know what ‘on time’ means.”

“Just because my friends are impolite assholes, doesn’t mean I have to be.” She sticks out his tongue at him and he rolls his eyes, but it’s all stained with fondness.

“Yeah, you’re just a regular asshole.”

“Run of the mill,” he agrees, deadpan. Clarke bites her bottom lip to stop herself from giggling. It was all fairly clear, in hindsight. He makes her forget herself. He makes her  _happy_.

“Here.” He gets up abruptly and extends a hand to her. She raises an eyebrow. “Help me set the table,” says Bellamy. She snorts and lets him help her to her feet.

“I was going to do that on my own before you got here,” she says primly.

He snorts. “You don’t have to do everything on your own, you know.”

Her whole body feel warm, her skin buzzing lightly. “I know.” She bumps his shoulder with hers. “I got you for that.”

They’re standing closely, and there’s a moment where she thinks he’s going to kiss her. But, he grabs the pizza boxes from the counter and sets them on the table instead. She sighs and sets out to search for the paper plates she hasn’t seen in weeks.

There’s a few minutes of easy silence. He gets the beer out of the fridge and she  _finally_  finds the paper plates in the cabinet next to stove she never uses. He even helps her clean up a little, dusting the countertops and picking up some of the garbage she had left lying around. He calls her a spoilt princess teasingly even though she knows it’s true and she calls him a dumb, helpful idiot, which rings, like, thirty percent true, at least.

“Hey,” he calls when the place looks – what she can only assume is—satisfactory to him, “Bree’s going to stop by to drop something off. Is that cool?”

A wave of hurt hits her. It starts at her stomach and she feels it constrict her insides. She’s surprised at how violent it is. How momentarily blinding. “Yeah,” she replies, not really looking at him. “Of course, it’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be?”

He laughs, not unkindly. “I didn’t think you really liked her.”

“That’s crazy,” she scoffs, but she sounds defensive to her own ears. “I don’t have a reason not to.”

“I just thought—“

“—Well, you thought wrong,” Clarke snaps.

Hurt flashes in his eyes and she  _regrets_. The jealousy is immediately replaced with a vague sadness. She wants him to be happy. She would like him to be happy with her, but that’s secondary. That’s another unchangeable truth. But she can’t just stand there and pretend it’s all okay. She thought she was ready, but. She doesn’t think she’s strong enough. Maybe, just not yet.

“I have to go.” She doesn’t have the desire nor the energy to hide the breaking of her voice, or heart. She spins on her heel before she can do something even stupider like yell. Or cry.

“Wait,” he calls. She pauses long enough for him to catch her wrist. Her skin burns hot where he touches her. Her eyes burn.  _She_  burns. She turns to face him slowly, her heart thundering in her chest, and stares at the spot above his shoulder, still not daring to look at him. She’s sure he can feel her pulse, wild and erratic.

“Are you jealous, Clarke?”

Her first instinct is to laugh it off. Her second is to run for the hills. Maybe, that says something about her character. She does neither, which  _definitely_  says something about what he means to her. She risks a glance at him. His face is wide open, eyes as honest as she’s ever seen. His expression, she’s hopeful enough to call it longing. It hits her, for maybe the first time, that she wants him to know. That  _he_  might want to know.

She blinks. “Yes.”

His eyes widen, the grip on her wrist loosening. Her hands are shaking, her throat is dry. She only notices that his hands are shaking, too, when he slides it into hers.  

“You know I’m in love with you, right?” His voice is so soft, she’s half-sure she imagined it. Mostly, she finds herself settling into the revelation the way one might settle into their bed after a long, tiring day.

She feels relief and joy and she  _feels_. More than she’s felt in a long time. She laughs, watery, and squeezes his hand. “I didn’t.”

He grins, a little crooked, a little shy. “Well, I am,” he says. He is beaming. She thinks she might explode, come undone. But she stays the way she is, and he looks at her the way he does. They are the same and they are in love.

“Oh.”  _I love you_ , she thinks. She tugs him closer, just because she can. “I love you, too,” she says.

He brushes her cheek with his thumb and she lets out a sigh so loud, it’s almost embarrassing. Almost. She gets on her tiptoes and kisses him then. He kisses her sweetly, and if he hadn’t said it before, she would’ve known that he loved her right there. She pulls away, places her hands on his shoulders to steady herself.

“Bree?” she asks because, apparently, she’s the jealous type. He kisses her quickly and she giggles into it, coaxing a longer one out of him. He grins smugly

“We slept together once. She’s pretty cool so, we hang out.”

She smiles, resting her forehead against his. “You know, I think I see it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at rubysvida


End file.
